page_title: Portrait painting
section_title: Baroque and Rococo
hierarchical_section_title: Portrait painting / History / Baroque and Rococo
caption_attribution_description: Nederlands: De Staalmeesters: het college van staalmeesters (waardijns) van het Amsterdamse lakenbereidersgilde, bijeen rond een tafel waarop een Perzisch kleed ligt, op tafel het opengeslagen stalenboek. Voorgesteld zijn (van links naar rechts): Jacob van Loon (1595-1674), Volckert Jansz (1605/10-81), Willem van Doeyenburg (ca. 1616-87), de knecht Frans Hendricksz Bel (1629-1701), Aernout van der Mye (ca. 1625-81) en Jochem de Neve (1629-81). Rechts boven de haard een schilderij met een brandend baken.
context_page_description: Portrait painting is a genre in painting, where the intent is to represent a specific human subject. The term 'portrait painting' can also describe the actual painted portrait. Portraitists may create their work by commission, for public and private persons, or they may be inspired by admiration or affection for the subject. Portraits often serve as important state and family records, as well as remembrances.
  Historically, portrait paintings have primarily memorialized the rich and powerful. Over time, however, it became more common for middle-class patrons to commission portraits of their families and colleagues. Today, portrait paintings are still commissioned by governments, corporations, groups, clubs, and individuals. In addition to painting, portraits can also be made in other media such as prints, photography, video and digital media.
  It might seem obvious that a painted portrait is intended to achieve a likeness of the sitter that is recognisable to those who have seen them, and ideally is a very good record of their appearance.
context_section_description: During the Baroque and Rococo periods (17th and 18th centuries, respectively), portraits became even more important records of status and position. In a society dominated increasingly by secular leaders in powerful courts, images of opulently attired figures were a means to affirm the authority of important individuals. Flemish painters Sir Anthony van Dyck and Peter Paul Rubens excelled at this type of portraiture, while Jan Vermeer produced portraits mostly of the middle class, at work and play indoors. Rubens’ portrait of himself and his first wife (1609) in their wedding attire is a virtuoso example of the couple portrait. Rubens fame extended beyond his art—he was a courtier, diplomat, art collector, and successful businessman.  His studio was one of the most extensive of that time, employing specialists in still-life, landscape, animal and genre scenes, in addition to portraiture. Van Dyck trained there for two years. Charles I of England first employed Rubens, then imported van Dyck as his court painter, knighting him and bestowing on him courtly status. Van Dyck not only adapted Rubens’ production methods and business skills, but also his elegant manners and appearance. As was recorded, "He always went magnificently dress’d, had a numerous and gallant equipage, and kept so noble a table in his apartment, that few princes were not more visited, or better serv’d." In France, Hyacinthe Rigaud dominated in much the same way, as a remarkable chronicler of royalty, painting the portraits of five French kings.
  One of the innovations of Renaissance art was the improved rendering of facial expressions to accompany different emotions. In particular, Dutch painter Rembrandt explored the many expressions of the human face, especially as one of the premier self-portraitists (of which he painted over 60 in his lifetime). This interest in the human face also fostered the creation of the first caricatures, credited to the Accademia degli Incamminati, run by painters of the Carracci family in the late 16th century in Bologna, Italy.
  Group portraits were produced in great numbers during the Baroque period, particularly in the Netherlands. Unlike in the rest of Europe, Dutch artists received no commissions from the Calvinist Church which had forbidden such images or from the aristocracy which was virtually non-existent. Instead, commissions came from civic and businesses associations. Dutch painter Frans Hals used fluid brush strokes of vivid color to enliven his group portraits, including those of the civil guards to which he belonged. Rembrandt benefitted greatly from such commissions and from the general appreciation of art by bourgeois clients, who supported portraiture as well as still-life and landscapes painting. In addition, the first significant art and dealer markets flourished in Holland at that time.
  With plenty of demand, Rembrandt was able to experiment with unconventional composition and technique, such as chiaroscuro. He demonstrated these innovations, pioneered by Italian masters such as Caravaggio, most notably in his famous Night Watch (1642).  The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Tulp (1632) is another fine example of Rembrandt's mastery of the group painting, in which he bathes the corpse in bright light to draw attention to the center of the painting while the clothing and background merge into black, making the faces of the surgeon and the students standout.  It is also the first painting that Rembrandt signed with his full name.
  In Spain, Diego Velázquez painted Las Meninas (1656), one of the most famous and enigmatic group portraits of all time.  It memorializes the artist and the children of the Spanish royal family, and apparently the sitters are the royal couple who are seen only as reflections in a mirror. Starting out as primarily a genre painter, Velázquez quickly rose to prominence as the court painter of Philip IV, excelling in the art of portraiture, particularly in extending the complexity of group portraits.
  Rococo artists, who were particularly interested in rich and intricate ornamentation, were masters o
caption: Rembrandt group portrait, The Syndics of the Clothmaker's Guild, 1662.
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